GRANDDAUGHTER ON TURTLE NEST WALK TODAY

Our granddaughter, Kiira, was able to go with us on a turtle nest walk today and we were lucky to find an EAI employee who was digging up a nest that was long overdue for hatching.  She indicated that they didn't always know why the nest didn't hatch, but that sometimes the condition of the sand, or many other conditions, left the nest with most of the eggs unhatched, as was the one we saw this morning.  You can see the unhatched eggs on the sand below the EAI employee's head in one of the photos in this posting.  It was very disappointing to see this situation, especially since we were all anticipating seeing some hatchling tracks that led to the ocean when we started our beach adventure today. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that any of the eggs hatched in this nest - at least from the remains that were dug up from the nest today.

SUCCESS FOR ANOTHER 60+ HATCHLINGS!

So.... here was a nest that neither EAI nor this blogger had marked or recorded previous to it hatching on 8/1/2012!  Fortunately, some tell-tale tracks alerted this writer to the existence of a nest that had hatched in the night.  When the tracks were followed back up toward the dune line, a few heads were just barely visible above the sand - getting sunburned because the ones on top of the "masses" in the channel coming up to the surface had stopped, realizing it was bright daylight, while the ones underneath were still pushing the top ones up and out.  It wouldn't be long before those exiting in the bright and hot sunlight would either die from being captured by birds, crabs, or other animals, or would die from heat exhaustion and drying out before they could reach the water.  Also, fortunately, the 25 - 30 hatchlings that had remained in the nest after daybreak found their way up and out of the nest and to the ocean, making a total of perhaps 60 or more from that nest that had successfully made it to the ocean during the night and then immediately after sunrise. Possibly, the large being that provide a long shadow over them, along with some "protection",  had assisted in their travel to the ocean!